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length of her spine. She could sense him so close to her pelvis, that essential part of him that defined him as a virile and potent male. Her body felt its primal magnetic pull just as it had all those years ago. What would it feel like to press against him now that she was no longer that gauche, inexperienced, slightly inebriated teenager?

      ‘Say please,’ he said.

      She gritted her teeth. ‘Please.’

      He released her and she rubbed at her wrist, shooting him a livid glare. ‘You’ve made me all dirty, you bastard,’ she said.

      ‘It’s good clean dirt,’ he said. ‘The kind that washes off.’

      Bella looked at the cuff of her shirt below the sleeve of her jacket that now had a full set of his dusty fingerprints on it. She could still feel the pressure of his fingers as if he had indelibly branded her flesh. ‘This shirt cost me five-hundred pounds,’ she said. ‘And now you’ve completely ruined it.’

      ‘You’re a fool, paying that for a shirt,’ he said. ‘The colour doesn’t even suit you.’

      She stiffened her shoulders in outrage. ‘Since when did you become a personal stylist?’ she jeered. ‘You don’t know the first thing about fashion.’

      ‘I know what suits a woman and what doesn’t.’

      She scoffed. ‘I bet you do,’ she said. ‘The less clothes the better, right?’

      His eyes glinted as they did a lazy sweep of her form. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

      Bella felt her skin tingle all over as if he had physically removed her clothes, button by button, zip by zip, piece by piece. She couldn’t stop herself from imagining how his work-roughened hands would feel on the softer smooth skin of her body. Would they catch and snare like a thorn on silk? Would they scratch or would they caress? Would they …?

      She pulled back from her wayward thoughts with a hard mental slap. ‘I’m going inside to say hello to Mrs Baker,’ she said and swished past him to go to the front door.

      ‘Mrs Baker is away on leave.’

      Bella stopped as if she had suddenly come up against an invisible wall. She turned around to look at him with a quizzical frown. ‘So who’s doing the cooking and cleaning?’ she asked.

      ‘I’m taking care of it.’

      Her frown deepened. ‘You?’

      ‘You have a problem with that?’ he asked.

      Bella blew out a little breath. She had a very big problem with it. Without Mrs Baker bustling about the place, she would be alone in the house with Edoardo. She hadn’t planned on being alone with him. It was a very big house, but still …

      In the past he had lived in the gamekeeper’s cottage. But, since her father had left him Haverton Manor, he had the perfect right to live inside the house. He managed her father’s investments and operated his own property-development business out of the study next to the library. Apart from the occasional business trip abroad, he lived and worked here.

      He slept here.

      In her house.

      ‘I hope you don’t expect me to take over the kitchen,’ Bella said, shooting him another glare. ‘I came to have a break.’

      ‘Your whole life is one long holiday,’ he said with a sneer that boiled her blood. ‘You wouldn’t know how to do a decent day’s work if you tried.’

      Bella gave her head a little toss. She wasn’t going to tell him about her plans to help Julian fund his mission work with a good chunk of her inheritance. Edoardo could jolly well go on thinking she was a flaky airhead just like everybody else. ‘Why would I need to work?’ she asked. ‘I have millions of pounds waiting for me to collect when I’m twenty-five.’

      The muscle near his tightly set mouth started hammering again and his eyes turned to blue-green granite. ‘Do you ever spare a thought for how hard your father had to work to make his money?’ he asked. ‘Or do you just spend it as fast as it’s dropped in your account?’

      Bella gave him another defiant look. ‘It’s my money to spend how I damn well like,’ she said. ‘You’re just jealous because you came from nothing. You got lucky with my father. If it hadn’t been for him, you’d be pacing a prison cell somewhere, not playing lord of the manor.’

      His eyes glittered with sparks of acrimony. ‘You’re just like your gold-digging bitch of a mother,’ he said. ‘I suppose you know she was here a couple of days ago?’

      Bella tried to disguise her surprise. And hurt. She hadn’t seen or heard from her mother in months. The last time she had heard from Claudia was when she’d called to say she was moving to Spain with a new husband—her second since her divorce from Bella’s father. Claudia had needed money for the honeymoon. But then, Claudia always needed money, and Bella always felt pressured into giving it. ‘What did she want?’ she asked.

      ‘What do you think she wanted?’ he asked, that hard gaze glittering with cynicism.

      Bella gave him an arch look. ‘Maybe she wanted to check you were still managing my assets properly.’

      A frown suddenly pulled at his brow. ‘If you want a blow-by-blow inspection of the books, then all you have to do is ask,’ he said. ‘I’ve offered to meet with you more regularly but you’ve always refused. The last three meetings, you didn’t even have the decency to show up in person.’

      Bella felt a little ashamed of herself. She had no question over his management of her father’s estate. The profits had steadily grown from the moment he had taken over the share portfolio in the months before her father had died from cancer. His street-smart intelligence and clever intuition had saved her assets where other investors’ had been lost during the economic turmoil of the past few years.

      A couple of times a year he would insist they meet so he could go through the estate books with her. At first she had suffered those meetings, all the while sitting silently seething at how he was in control of her life. But even in that large, swanky London office he had seemed a little too close to her. The last meeting she had attended in person, her mind had wandered off into dangerous territory as she sat staring at the dark pepper of stubble around his mouth as he patiently explained the stocks and shares. She had tried to focus but within seconds she had started gazing at his hands as he had turned the pages of the meticulous report he had prepared. He had looked up at one point and locked gazes with her. She still remembered the throb of that silence. She had felt it deep inside her body.

      She could still feel it.

      ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Bella said. ‘I’m sure you’re doing all you can to keep things in order.’

      There was a tight little silence.

      ‘Are you expecting your boyfriend to join you?’ he asked.

      Bella tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear that the chilly breeze had worked loose. ‘He’s away on a mission in Bangladesh,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d come here until he gets back.’

      ‘London nightlife losing its appeal?’ he asked.

      She gave him a brittle glare. ‘I haven’t been to a nightclub in ages. It’s not my scene any more.’

      ‘Prayer meetings more your thing?’

      Oh, how she hated him for his mockery. ‘I bet you’ve never got down on your knees in your life,’ she tossed back.

      His eyes slid to her pelvis and back with deliberate slowness. They seemed to burn with a secret erotic message as they met hers. ‘Say the word, princess, and I’ll be on my knees before you can say “heavens above.”’

      Bella’s insides coiled and flexed with hot, traitorous desire. It simmered between her thighs. A flickering pulse that made her aware of every muscle and

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